How does learning happen?

Following my recent bout of teaching on participation and partnerships, which was all too brief and was always going to be a shallow treatment, and some extended reflection it dawned on me that I had neglected one important area. While we discussed and debated many of the reasons for participation and partnerships and why it is important to strengthen such processes for effective rural development, I had failed to mention why participatory approaches are relevant to the ways that people learn, especially adult learners.

There is a massive amount of information available online about adult learning, theories of learning and learning styles. I won't go into this in detail but it is important to have a good understanding and how participatory approaches facilitate learning. Firstly there are a variety of theories of learning which include the behaviourist, cognitive and constructivist approach. There is no universal theory of learning so it is useful to have a grasp of these. Rural development is largely in the business of teaching adults and there are special characteristics of adult learners that need to be considered. These include: wealth of personal experience; a desire to obtain knowledge they can use in the context of their real lives; enjoy interaction and sharing experiences and learning from this usually in a safe environment. Adults too learn in a variety of ways. Much educational research supports the idea of four main steps in the way adults learn. This is now known as the Experiential Learning Cycle and involving Experience: Reflection: Thinking: and Action which leads to gradual transformation in the learner. But adults are individuals and we all have our own learning preferences or Learning Styles. Basically learners can be divided into four categories; Pragmatists: Reflectors: Theorists: and Activists but it is more likely that we fall into more than one category or style and that a number of contexts and factors influence this.

What is my point? The most important point is to appreciate that there are a variety of ways in which people learn and that this must be taken into account when you are training or running workshops. And that running such trainings and workshops in a participatory and flexible way is the most appropriate approach to achieve effective learning.

If you are interested in this area of teaching and learning I would recommend Peter Taylor's book 'How to Design a Training Course; A Guide to Participatory Curriculum Development. Extracts of this book are available online.